


Pink Collar Crime

by PseudoFox



Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: Anthropomorphic, Awkwardness, Drama, F/M, Friendship/Love, Furry, Interspecies, Interspecies Romance, Love, Minor Original Character(s), Original Character(s), Regret
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-15
Updated: 2017-03-15
Packaged: 2018-10-05 15:25:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10311263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PseudoFox/pseuds/PseudoFox
Summary: Nick Wilde has dedicated himself to 'the art of the con'. Despite his relative inexperience and tough life in the big city, the teenage fox has managed to pull off some interesting hustles. Partnering with his friend Finnick, he plans something important that faces him off against the toughest mark of all: his own emotions.





	

**Somewhere in downtown Zootopia, about a decade before the Bellwether crisis began...**

"Alright, you really think that we should go over this one more time?" Nick Wilde remarked. The teenage fox slipped a paw through his slicked back hair. "I'm sure that I could read my lines held upside down— even with my head dunked in a barrel of water. I'll still sound convincing."

"Hey, it's like my dad always taught me: the moment that you've heard something so much that you start to feel sick of it is the moment that you actually learn," Finnick replied. The shorter fox slipped on a bulky jacket. The golden star icons on the front and back side read in bold letters: 'Universal Exports Repair Service'.

"Fine," Nick said. He slid out a small black jar out of one his pockets, being careful with his flamboyant pink suit. "You should know that I've buttered up this girl so much the past few days. Whatever I say, well, she'll be eating out of my paw."

"Nobody should even be _touching_ those mitts of yours," Finnick declared. He stepped away from the van and rolled his shoulders back. The phony outfit seemed to cling to his fur tighter and tighter by the moment. "You should look at the news sometime. Haven't you heard that the 'Dapper Pupper' brand gel has carcinogenic ingredients? Laced with chromium ions, my mammal... and you go through that wolf-bait hipster product like—"

"Hey! I get enough of that from Honey!" Nick exclaimed, raising his eyebrows in mock shock. He looked at his reflection in the van's side mirror and straightened his tie. Various shades of red and white mixed together stretched across his outfit — vanity oozed off of his tall vest, tight pants, and slender belt.

"You should try genuinely _listening_ to the girls that you sleep with for a change," Finnick groused. He hopped into the van's driver side seat and clutched a hat. "Just a thought." 

"I'll take it under advisement." Nick filed his nails for a second, leaning up against a lamppost. The fox flipped up the empty fur gel container into the air, whacked it with his tail, and left it spinning at the top of a nearby wastebasket. That he came tantalizingly close to slipping it in, only to fail at the last split-second, wasn't a good sign.

Finnick rubbed his paws against his ears and gently slipped the workmammal's cap on. For a fox wearing a used Ranger Scout outfit subject to some serious modifications, he seemed to look the part of a wayward delivery driver well enough. "Okay, mister hip, how do I look?"

"Like you've already had your soul drained out of your body by nine to five drudgery," Nick calmly replied. "But, just a moment—" The larger fox grabbed a set of musty rocks from underneath the lamppost and scuffed them all across Finnick's shirt. The smaller fox's eyes narrowed, but he said nothing. Nick then brushed some grime upon Finnick's blue jeans before pulling out his nail file once again.

"If you touch my actual body, then you go home in crutches."

"Relax, my mammal, this is just for the hat." Nick slipped the file against the side of the shorter fox's cap, damaging the plastic edge.

"Alright, I suppose I'm beautiful now," Finnick remarked. He turned to glance at himself in the van's big hubcaps. " _But_ , mister hip, I still want us to verbally go over the whole thing."

"As you wish," Nick responded. He gestured over with his paw and began walking with his companion out of the dingy alley. Finnick casually clicked in his pocket to lock the van before hopping up in front of Nick. "So, it's—"

"Simple, yes," Finnick said, running his paw idly against a batch of berry-filled shrubberies. The massive office complex that would host their con stretched out in front of them. "At 2:20pm, just about ten minutes from now, I'll pop out from behind the fountain to distract the real delivery driver."

"At 2:22pm," Nick chimed in, "I'll be heading up to Ms. Gonzalez's office. The corporate raider has no clue who I am. But _her staff_ knows my assumed persona well, feeling totally comfortable seeing me around." The fox flashed a winning smile as he reached into his pocket, pulling out a pair of dark grey glasses. "Come 2:25pm, Ms. Gonzales herself will just _have_ to leave, particularly since it's the ZPD of all mammals demanding to see her. And she'll feel quite tense not getting her package yet."

"That's when I let the hapless driver off the hook," Finnick commented, "and he'll rush on up the stairs. You'll be there flirting with Ms. Gonzalez' secretary—"

" _Songbird_ ," Nick interjected, pointing a paw in the air as he grinned from cheek to cheek.

"Fine, flirting with _'Songbird'_ , as the far-from-humble prey errand girl is known," Finnick said, moving on, "gives you the perfect opportunity. I head for the green Toyota Camelry that Honey has left parked on the other side of the complex. You intercept the delivery guy and his package."

"It's like clockwork. I chew out the fellow for a bit before taking it," Nick said, "which thereby gives me the opportunity to pull out _this bad boy_." The fox slipped a long but skinny metal rod out of his sleeve. "It only takes a few swipes of the neodymium magnet." Nick wielded it in the air like a wand. "The hard drive inside of the package gets as scrambled as an egg."

"You give it over to Ms. Big Business Bitch," Finnick added. Both foxes halted as they came to the gigantic fountain— a grotesque combination of deer, sheep, and rabbit, somehow mutated into one entity, pierced the sky. An endless stream of water spewed from the granite monster's mouth. "She finds herself out of luck completely, but she won't know it for at least another half hour— if not more."

"The ZPD has zero reason to believe her. She gets burned. _To ashes._ Our benefactor keeps his ill-gotten enterprises safe, Tundratown's lowlifes starting the celebration—"

"And then we get wired the other half of the money. Best payday ever. Simple as a pickpocket job." Finnick shoved a paw into the air and wiggled about his hat a bit.

"Simple... yeah..." Nick trailed off. Seeing the short fox adjusting his outfit, the little guy's face filled with both steely determination and raw joy, brought back memories about the Ranger Scouts that he'd shoved deep down. They came roaring to the top of Nick's mind in a split-second.

"You okay, mammal?"

"Oh, it's fine," Nick said. He suddenly shoved a paw down into the fountain water and splashed a little bit on the side of his face. "Just need to clear my head. Gather my thoughts together."

"We can afford the best pills for that _after_ the payday," Finnick declared with a smirk. He hopped onto a stone ledge and looked out at the empty road stretching out beside them. "Time to do this."

"Oh, _yeah,_ " Nick remarked. He pressed his glasses against his face and rubbed his teeth with his paw. The teenage fox's sparkly reflection gazed back at him in the fountain's pool of water. He felt absolutely ready.

**A few minutes later...**

"She's not by the janitor's office, she's not at the elevators, she's not chatting up the legal clerks... damn it, she's not _anywhere_ ," Nick mumbled to himself, gritting his teeth. The fox circled around the empty conference room, glaring at his twisted reflection in an empty punch bowl, and went for the exit. "Did she decide, for God knows what reason, to head clear across town for lunch?"

Nick's paws tapped anxiously upon the slick floor as he jogged over to the other side of the building. The fox came upon a group of worried sheep in plain black suits, all chatting about some kind of financial crisis ready to strike, and he halted dead in his tracks. He looked out above their heads and saw a familiar deer in the distance. Nick prepared to run, but he paused, feeling a burst of air conditioning fluttering his suit jacket, and he reminded himself to look like he belonged there— to beam with confidence. 

The fox sauntered across a massive atrium as he put on a happy grin. The clerk before him, a prey mammal who'd lived and breathed simple politeness over decades upon decades, smiled back. "Not to be a bother or anything," Nick said, slipping a paw against the edge of his suit, "but I was just hoping if—"

"Oh, 'Songbird'," the elderly deer remarked, her face lighting up. "She's spent a lot of time outside today, for whatever reason, but she just got in a moment ago. She's at the desk in front of Ms. Gonzales' office, like usual, right now." The clerk pointed a hoof down the massive hallway.

"Excellent!" Nick felt his heart fluttering a bit as he gazed down the tile. Sure enough, a particularly pretty gazelle— with a smile so sharp that it could cut diamond— sat at a massive white desk. She looked engrossed in a pair of file folders, her long hair slipping against a pair of fake plants.

" _Hola!_ " She popped her head back and locked her eyes on Nick. "Neal Caffrey! How are you doing?"

"Oh, m-my day has been rather n-nice so far," Nick replied. The teenage fox already felt ravaged by hormones— spending far too much time than he'd like to admit thumbing through lewd books and lewder magazines when he wasn't hustling. Even sharing the same intimate space with a female this beautiful, Nick's eyes almost bathing in the seductive curves on the prey's body, seemed too much.

"Can I help you with something?" She did that little move where she rested her head on both arms— something natural that still looked like a pose from a _Preyda_ ad.

"Well, Songbird, I w-was in the neighborhood doing errands, and I really—"

"Oh, goodness!" Songbird interjected. She slid some of her folders off of the desk and held out a hoof. "I have to say: where did you get that _outfit_?" She drank it all in, gazing at the layers of vibrant pink all over the fox's body, and Nick felt so anxious that he could hardly stand. "Caffrey, I love the details! Those thatched patterns stretching along your suit jacket— drawing my eyes in like you're hypnotizing me!"

"You're, w-well," Nick stammered, starting to sweat profusely, "so... kind..."

"We talked about you making something like that during our date, yes, but you described it as if you were a kit building your dream spaceship to Pluto—"

"It's," Nick began, yet his mind immediately blanked. He awkwardly wiggled his paws around his tie. As much as his instincts screamed at him to be more aware of his surroundings with his mind on the con— or, at the very least, to show some legitimate confidence— the teenage fox's limbs felt numb. "I, well, I put a lot of effort into everything. Went to various Market Street shops for individual elements, such as the cufflinks, the tie, and all... the results are, in my eyes, quite a success."

"My eyes as well, Caffrey," said the prey mammal smoothly. Songbird picked herself up out of her large, plush chair, clutching a backpack crammed full of various paperwork. "I'm glad that I can see you again. _Gracias_."

"Hey, there's n-no reason to r-rush," Nick stammered. Songbird put on a quizzical look, running a hoof through her hair. "I simply—"

A loud slamming noise caused both mammals to jump. Songbird stepped over to the edge of her desk— glancing all about to see if any of the important items that she'd been sorting were amiss. Nick gestured over for her to wait while speeding across the office hallway.

When the teenage fox came to the complex's massive set of stairs, he witnessed an angry-looking yak in a silly uniform. The delivery mammal clutched the edge of a 'You Are Here' display that had gotten halfway ripped off from the wall. He had somehow wedged it awkwardly in between a row of metal flowerpots, bolted in place, and a pretentious Greco-Roman column. Nick took a gulp.

"This day, ugh," the yak groused, wiggling about a slim brown package, "it just goes on and on... _this day_ —"

"Tell me about it!" Nick interjected.

"What?" The yak glanced upward. The way that his hair tossed about in front of his eyes made the mammal appear even more helpless. "Who are—"

"A friend," Nick declared. He reached out to pick up the package. "Just ask Songbird and the rest of the regular staff here. I'll take care of this."

"I'm already in trouble for being late, not to mention tripping onto this place's stupid map," the yak protested, "and I don't want to get into more trouble by not individually delivering the—"

"There's a trick," Nick said. He held up a paw over his head. The yak seemed to slip into a child-like trance, following the fox's moves. "All of these Greco-Roman style buildings in Zootopia, since about 1990 or so, have been built by the same company. Contractors based out of Tundratown have a virtual monopoly, polar bear architects answering to connected characters... but— anyways—" The fox slid his paw underneath the plate-filled shelf on the wall. "The important thing here is that they save money on these metallic columns and shelves by using these ridges in the structure. That means that they basically have _two_ settings."

"You already lost me," the yak muttered.

"It's easy," Nick went on. He put on a caring, affectionate sort of facial expression. "Just look at me— listen to me." Given the yak's hapless temperament and— Nick wouldn't admit it, but he held a lot of specist stereotypes himself that often proved to be true— likely low intelligence level, he didn't have that much of a challenge. "The shelf is either shoved out for maximum room for putting stuff on it, which is the default like you see now, _or_ —" The fox wiggled his paw underneath the shelf, and it seemed to retract into the wall as if by magic. "Somewhat folded in."

"Oh, cool, now I can get this stupid thing back in place," the yak remarked. He walked around the fox and shoved the massive map display back upon the wall. "Thanks."

"No problem." Nick held out his paw for the delivery mammal's package. He didn't make the mistake of asking for it again. He just acted as if he felt absolutely confident that he deserved it.

"See you," the yak said. Nick clutched the crinkle-covered brown item against his chest. The yak didn't even think about it. As Finnick's father had always said: 'The heart of a hustle is believing that you _ought_ to get what you want.'

"Oh, it's nice to see you again, Caffrey," interjected the elderly deer from before. She surprised Nick from behind— almost making the fox drop his powerful magnet. "I need to step out for a while."

"Oh, that's... p-perfectly fine," Nick remarked. He turned around and gave a friendly nod. As the deer jotted down the stairs, he flipped about and headed for Songbird's desk. His right arm, tucked between the package and his suit, swiftly rubbed the crinkly item.

"Once again, _hola!_ " Songbird looked engrossed in the various documents bulging out of her small black backpack. Nick nodded back. He let his magnet rod fall into a suit pocket and confidently presented the package to the gazelle. "Oh, thank you, I was worried that the driver would take _forever_ for this!"

"It's no problem," Nick responded, looking all around, "I'm finding myself curious exactly what Ms. Gonzalez—"

"I need to be at the ZPD's closest station, and I have to go _now_!" A haggard-looking antelope, her hair bunched up on itself and her glasses coated in sweat, burst out of the nearby doors. Her appearance gave the airs of a middle school teacher outraged at her pupil's failure to learn comprehensive algebra. She took one look at Songbird, scowled, and then grabbed the package right from the gazelle's hooves. "I'll have that, thank you very much!"

" _Mi amiga_ — I think that," Songbird began, zipping up her backpack.

"This!" The antelope shoved a hoof down upon the desk— rattling various pens, pencils, and other supplies so much that a pack of highlighters fell onto the floor. "This is _important_! This is _urgent_! Just what—"

"Ms. Gonzalez, I get it!" Songbird called out. "I simply need—"

"Oh, just be quiet!" The antelope held her arms against her sides, her poka-dotted black and grey dress tugging against her fur. Then she loudly sighed. "At least, I suppose, I haven't had to listen to your stupid crooning while I'm working—"

Songbird cleaned up the fallen items from her desk before shoving the backpack on. "Oh, Caffrey, can you—"

The fox had left without either of the arguing animals noticing.

"Caffrey?" Songbird asked, stretching her neck.

"The hell is that?" Ms. Gonzales asked. She flipped around, locking the office's immense doors, and then went over to clutch her purse from the side of the desk. "Is it some kind of new cappuccino or espresso or something?"

"Gone again? He'll pop back here tomorrow, out of the heavens, like he always does—"

"Who's 'he'? And— oh, come on, it doesn't matter!" Ms. Rodriguez exclaimed. She fumbled around in her pockets for a few seconds. "If only I could find my damn car keys— never in the same place as my damn office keys, _why?_ " She glanced downward and spotted a wayward chain beside her high heels. "Alright, finally!"

"We have everything, _mi amiga_ ," Songbird remarked, "we should go—"

"About time!" Ms. Rodriguez threw up her hooves in sheer irritation.

**Several minutes later...**

The thick traffic along the highway couldn't dampen Finnick's spirits. He reached for another bunch of cicada fries from his BugBurga bucket while rubbing his back upon the car's comfy seat. Honey had good taste in hustling vehicles to say the least. The only thing that didn't fit was the tinny-sounding Fleetwood Yak cassette that Nick had popped in several minutes ago.

"You know," Finnick said, switching off the sedan's radio, "we really should look more into this Mr. Big guy. He takes care of his crews. Why keep on dealing with middlemammals? It's not like we can't meet him face-to-face, and the old-time gangsters are pretty fair if you don't screw 'em."

"Oh, those mafia types," Nick remarked, waving a paw dismissively. He pressed an ear against the side of the window and sighed. "Once you get slid into the 'friend of mine' or 'friend of ours' slot with them, sure the pay is good. Beats regular hustling." The fox closed his eyes. "Still, it's a really unhappy long-term commitment that you get shackled to... like being married to a snarky wife that you can't ever divorce and can't ever mouth off back to, no matter how bad you get bruised."

"And you occasionally have to deal with a dead body."

"Well, _yeah_ , there's that too," Nick responded with a chuckle.

"That association... if being 'shackled' and 'bruised' is what you think of when you hear 'married' and 'wife,' my mammal, then you're getting into kinks that even _I_ can't stomach." Finnick grinned as he popped on the sedan's air system.

Nick remained uncharacteristically silent for a while. The chill air blowing upon his face couldn't help but make him think more of Tundratown. Honey might want to head there to try out one of the new halibut taco places— they had a payday nice enough to justify it, and everybody could eat together. Everything had gone smoothly.

"Stop looking out the window like you want to jump out— sad comic book villain style," Finnick remarked. Nick rubbed a paw against his temple and leaned back in his chair. "Alright, we should face facts. I'm loving how well this went. You're not. I'm thinking over the best ways to blow through the hundreds upon hundreds. You're not." The shorter fox locked eyes with his passenger. "It's not that you feel anything for the mark. So—"

"Yeah, it's the girl."

"Songbird."

"Yeah..."

"You're in your teens, my mammal," Finnick said. He reached over and turned the air up even more— the cold freezing Nick to the bone. "You're like a _honeybee_. Time to _pollinate._ Shove your little stinger into as many open flowers as you can— live your life, you know?"

"I'm positive that's not how botany works, Finnick."

"Ugh!" Finnick slammed a paw down upon the steering wheel. "Can't we get our mind off of the lanky girl for at least an hour or something? Concentrate on anything else."

"Whatever you want, I guess..."

"So, Mr. Big," Finnick said. He picked up his paws and mimed a tiny mammal walking across a field. "He's always wanting to expand new things, at least lately. I insist that we think about forming a semi-permanent relationship with his crews. They'll call us 'consultants'."

"Ugh, it's like a 'Fortune 500' company," Nick groused, "I'll bet that the over-inflated little gasbag has a fountain just as pretentious as Ms. Gonzales' monstrosity. Fancy curtains that cost so much you could trade them in for a car, resting on just one window alone. Hell, probably their rugs are overpriced pieces of garbage for no reason— and those are things that you wipe your paws on."

"Just think about it."

"Alright," Nick said. He idly fumbled through his jacket, pulling out the magnet and playing with it in his paws. "You know—"

"Hey, keep that away from the dashboard, okay?" Finnick interjected, shoving Nick's shoulder, "I know that you're not paying attention, but you're still lucky enough to ride in one of those computer-chip-crammed new model sedans. One with the _the fancy shit._ We're barely moving because of the traffic and all. But we're still _in motion_. Would be rather inconvenient if your little toy suddenly cuts our electronics off— skidding off the road into the lake."

"Good thing I got my flotation device right here," Nick said, reaching down for his side pocket.

"You got," Finnick began. He stopped as he watched Nick pull out a red and white striped item and present it against the dashboard. It looked like the bastard three-way child of a candy cane, a large wallet, and a hunk of bubble wrap. "The hell is... that?"

"It's a deluxe cassette case that Songbird gave me," Nick said, popping the object open, "with these hoof-painted symbols and the like covering it. The aquatic theme goes with the actual music perfectly. Of course, these are all demos. Stuff recorded with High School A/V club level equipment, but you can hear—"

"You're obsessed, my mammal," Finnick remarked. He took in a deep breath. "This will make letting go of her even harder."

"She's stuck at dead-end corporate jobs, but just listen to this one," Nick said, putting on the hint of a smile. He popped the cassette tape into the car's player and turned up the volume. "The lyrics leave a lot to be desired, and the instrumentals are kitsch, but just check out her voice."

The two listened for a good half of a minute. Nick's smile grew wider and wider. Finnick could no longer contain his disdain.

"Is the central theme of this _really_ ," Finnick commented, pressing a paw against the dashboard, "her going: 'Blub-blub-blub, blub-blub, we are swimming'?"

"I know!" Nick kicked against the car door. "I told her! Something like 'Try Swimming' as the title and the 'blub-blub-blub' chorus just don't work— she needs to broaden the title to something like 'Try It All' or whatever and replace the noises with something poppy! Like 'Oh-baby-oh' or 'Oh-wow' or something—"

"My mammal, _seriously,_ " Finnick began, putting on an understanding look as he ejected the cassette tape, "it's time to start forgetting her."

"This is a collectible thing, though, it means something," Nick protested, "what I'm holding in my hooves is a sign that there's something more I just touched on. She and I could have had a relationship— species barriers not meaning a thing. She's a prey mammal, for crying out loud." Nick ran his paws against his legs as he put on a wistful expression, getting lost in thought. "It all makes you wonder about things beyond hustling—"

Finnick ripped the custom-made cassette case out of Nick's grasp. Without saying a world, he lowered the sedan's window and tossed the case into the lake. Nick let out a deep, low groan. With his eyes closed and his paws clutched against his side, he heard Finnick ejecting the tape itself out of the cassette player.

"Come on, Finnick," Nick protested, slipping his head to the side and tapping his paws against the dashboard, "I'll forget her. I will. I won't ever see her again. But not the tape. Not that."

"Why?"

"It's _good music._ It's also a sign that I can positively contribute to something. Make something... not just hustle it. I didn't just recommend instrument after instrument. I managed to put my pawprints on a few melodies here and there. We spent half of our first date talking about the whole project. Hell, I even picked her stage name."

"It says: 'By Songbird, The Gazelle'," Finnick read aloud. 

"Yeah!"

"Too pretentious," Finnick declared.

Nick let out yet another groan as the shorter fox flicked a wrist, launching the tape into the air. Yet no splash met Nick's ears. He glanced back and spotted the cassette resting neatly in the backseat's cupholder.

"Thanks," Nick said.

"Honey hasn't heard it yet. No promises on whether or not it takes a swim after that."

Nick shrugged, trying to play it cool, even if he felt deeply nervous. "Besides, I—"

"You _what_?"

"We'll leave that cassette tape on Honey's desk. After all, we'll never hear of 'Gazelle' again," Nick said, "what I'm really interested in is wondering what we could get out of Mr. Big. Now that I've thought it over, you have a point—"

" _Now,_ we're talking!"

At that exact moment, the traffic started to speed up. Finnick revved the sedan and slipped it from lane to lane. Before long, they'd made it back to Tundratown. They weren't sure what would happen next, but both of them felt optimistic about what the future could bring.

**[The End]**

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks very much for reading!
> 
> Inspired by both the TV series 'White Collar' and the wonderful 'Zootopia' film, this piece was done as part of the recurring 'Thematic Thursday' event. I wanted to write something that serves as a clear-cut prequel to the film itself. Please post if you have any advice, criticisms, ideas, or the like. Thank you again for looking at the piece.


End file.
